By Dipo Olowookere
The 2018 financial year was good for Cadbury Nigeria Plc after going through turbulent times few years ago as a result of recession in the country.
The financial results released by the board last week showed that there was an 8.75 percent improvement in the revenue generated in the period under review.
The company said its earnings in 2018 FY grew to N36 billion from N33.1 billion, while the gross profit rose to N8 billion from N7.4 billion.
However, the cost of sales increased by 9.25 percent to N28 billion from N25.7 billion, while the finance cost went up by 8.08 percent to N592.2 million from N548 million.
In the period under review, the company’s effort to cut its selling and distribution expenses paid off as this reduced by 9.98 percent to N4.7 billion from N5.2 billion, while the administrative expenses also went down slightly by 1.46 percent to N1.571 billion from N1.595 billion.
A look at the other income showed that there was a significant reduction of 79.67 percent to N20.2 million from N99.3 million.
For the profit before tax, this improved significantly by 249.06 percent to N1.2 billion from N350.3 million, while the profit after tax rose by 174.36 percent to N823.1 million from N300 million.
As a result of the positive results, the board is proposing the payment of 25 kobo per share as dividend, higher than 16 kobo paid in the 2017 financial year.
This would be paid on June 19, 2019, a day after the Annual General Meeting (AGM) taking at the Civic Centre, Lagos by 10am. The closure date has been fixed for May 20-14, 2019.
Adedapo Adesanya